In honor of the Phoenix probe, I’m gonna tell you about my latest delving into science fiction—the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. It’s a bit different from my alien-minded interests, but I find I’m very much enjoying it—despite its classification as hard science fiction, the Sweeping Scope of it has a Giant Fantasy Epic sense to it, and it’s got a lot of cool viewpoint characters.
Since the beginning of the story is set
twenty minutes into the future,* the trilogy starts out as the hardest of hard science fiction—it’s
adamantine science fiction. Robinson did a
lot of research for this series, because he wanted it to be actually
possible as a scenario. You get the biological, engineering, chemical, and physical aspects of what it would be like to try to terraform Mars. The amount of work involved amazes me. He does slip into the less hard science fiction—the first is the invention of a handy plot point that allows the main characters who originally colonized Mars to live long enough see the entire long process of terraforming—but most of these advances are is still in the realm of possibility, rather like those 1960’s books about what could happen in the far-off year 2000, so it’ll look retro in a few years but works for the story.
He does tend to get a little excited describing every step of the science, and the geography (areography) of Mars, which can get a little long. But that’s a liveable problem.
And it isn’t just science. That handy longevity Plot Point I mentioned shows one important part of this series that all the blurbs on the cover are always carrying on about: this is also a story about people. The politics of Mars show up—economics, politics, and environmentalism make appearances and give you the view of a whole civilization with all their differing opinions on every matter, and all the human issues—petty and important, sometimes simultaneously—that would go with a trip to Mars. Robinson does pretty well at giving you the different viewpoints of characters—you can understand the motives of even the characters I hate (including the first two viewpoint characters). That’s my favorite part—I’m kept interested in the individuals as well as the overarching Saga.
He is pretty conscious of this as a Sweeping Saga, and trowels on the symbolism. The charismatic first man on Mars, who is the all-American hero, is named John Boone. The two opponents for whether to terraform Mars or keep it pristine are named Saxifrage—after a plant that gets into rocks and breaks them apart—and Clayborne.** He also tries consciously to make a folkloric and mythological—one short interlude chapter is apparently told from the point of view from a Jungian collective consciousness.*** But the self-consciousness doesn’t get too overbearing—this is one author whose Fucking Deep tendencies have yet to completely ruin the story. And so far, it’s apretty absorbing one. Now I’m all psyched for us humans to get our asses in gear and head off to MARS! I mean, what could be cooler?
And we have made the first step. You go, Phoenix!
*Warning: This is a link to TV Tropes, a site that EATS TIME. Click with care.
**My favorite name-insert was a tented town called Bradbury, which in Green Mars was described as looking “like something out of Illinois: treelined blacktop streets, screened-in orches fronting two-story brick houses with shingle roofs, a main street with shops and parking meters, a central park with a white gazebo under giant maples …”
***Only he also was trying to equate the folklore to that of Paul Bunyan, so clearly he didn’t do all his research—Paul started out as a commercial creation. It would be like comparing the new folklore of Mars to stories about the Kool-Aid man.
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